The Bundeswehr should get new Leopard tanks

The Grand Coalition wants to retrofit: In Parliament Union and SPD have decided after SPIEGEL information to order 80 new Leopard tanks for the Bundeswehr. Order volume: around one billion euros.

It is not as if Secretary of Defense Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) is missing the money. On the contrary, this year too, much of the already approved budget remains, because the procurement of suitable material fails.

More in the SPIEGEL

Issue 46/2019

When saving makes you poor

The zero interest eats up the assets of the Germans. What you have to do now for your money

Digital Edition |Printed issues |Apps |SUBSCRIPTION

The Grand Coalition now wants to upgrade the Bundeswehr after SPIEGEL information with 80 other "Leopard" tanks of the latest type 2 A7V. With the votes of Union and SPD the defense committee decided in a budget application, the Federal Government should buy as soon as possible "a circulation reserve of armored vehicles in the range of 80 additional systems" and pay these from unissued budgets for other weapons, which are delayed. Reason is the concern of the army for the tank inventory.

95 decommissioned "Leopard" tanks are to beupgraded

Although - so an internal paper, which is the SPIEGEL - the tank fleet will be increased after a government decision by 95 actually decommissioned "Leopard" tank, which are now upgraded to the latest technology level, to 320 "Leopard" tank.

However, the troops will receive the new tanks until 2025 successively. The army fears that because of the simultaneous modernization of older "Leopard" models temporarily only 100 systems could be available and Germany could thus not fulfill its obligation to NATO, so the submission from early September.

The federal government must now decide whether to adopt the decision of the committee.

The order would probably have a volume of around one billion euros. The armaments company Krauss Maffei Wegmann would be even better utilized by the order than already. The Munich tank builders had already won a large contract from Hungary and hope to win the bid in other Eastern European countries too.

Together with the French defense company Nexter, the family-owned company is currently developing a novel tank system that should be ready after the year 2030.

This topic comes from the new SPIEGEL magazine - available at the kiosk from Saturday morning and every Friday at SPIEGEL + and in the digital magazine edition.

What is in the new SPIEGEL and what stories you find at SPIEGEL +, you will also learn in our free policy newsletter DIE LAGE, which appears six times a week - compact, analytical, opinionated, written by the political minds of the editorial staff.